Tax recovery requires proper notification as per Income Tax Act sections.

1. The petitioners Moti Lal and Purshottam Das prayed to this Court for issue of a writ in the nature of certiorari to quash a notice issued by the Income - tax Officer, District Kanpur, dated the 4-11-1955, whereby the petitioners were called upon to pay a sum of Rs. 12,125-14-0 and for the issue of a further writ in the nature of prohibition commanding the opposite party not to recover that amount from the petitioners, and not to take any further proceedings for the recovery of the aforesaid amount. The notice, which was thus challenged, called upon the petitioners to deposit this amount, which had been assessed as income - tax on the firm of Messrs. Indian Distillary, Anwarganj, Kanpur, on the ground that the petitioners were jointly and severally liable for the payment of this tax under S.44 of the Income - tax Act.
It was further stated in the notice that, if the amount was not deposited within the period of three days from the receipt of the notice, the opposite party would be compelled to take suitable action against the petitioners including action under S.46(1) of the Income - tax Act. The notice was challenged originally in the writ petition on, three grounds : The first ground was that this notice was illegal because S.44 of the Income - tax Act was not applicable, as the business of the assessee firm had not been discontinued and that had been succeeded to by one of the partners Maclan Behari Singhania.
The second ground urged was that, since the provisions of S.44 of the income - tax Act were not applicable, the tax could not be recovered from the petitioners, as there was no provision under the Income - tax Act authorising the Income - tax Officer to recover the tax from the petitioners when it was due from the firm. The third ground was that the Income - tax Officer had once agreed to realise the tax assessed on the firm from the partners in proportion to their shares, and thereafter he was not competent to recover the amount of tax of the share of one partner from other partners. During the hearing of this petition, learned counsel for the petitioner moved an application for amending the grounds taken in the petition, and sought permission to urge that this petition should be allowed on the further ground that the assessment in question, in pursuance of which the recovery was being made, was itself illegal and without jurisdiction.
When taking this ground, the reason for urging that the order of assessment was illegal and without jurisdiction was indicated to be the fact that the assessment of the firm had taken place after its dissolution. This application for taking additional grounds was opposed by learned counsel for the department, but we were of the opinion that the petitioners should be heard on this point because, if the proceedings which were being taken upon the impugned notice were entirely without jurisdiction, it might be in the interest of justice to allow the petition on that ground. Consequently we heard learned counsel for the parties on this additional ground also.

2. Since the additional ground, taken subsequently, raises a question of jurisdiction of the Income - tax Officer who made the assessment, and challenges the validity of that order of assessment, we think it advisable to deal with this point first. The contention of learned counsel for the petitioners, which has to be considered, is that the order of assessment in question, which relates to the assessment year 1944-45, was passed by the Income - tax Officer on the 22nd of February 1949 on the firm as the assessee when the firm had been dissolved earlier, on 7-2-1948.
It was contended that after the firm had been dissolved it became non - existent and there could be no as